Muller.”
“Thank you.” She further advised him, “Captain Collins will be flying a Cessna Turbo Stationair HD, and he will file a flight plan to Kavak with a fueling stop at Ciudad Bolívar, so you should be landing at Kavak at dawn—about six-fifteen A.M.”
“If you were a bird-watcher, you’d know how exciting this is.”
“Yes, sir.” She continued, “May I confirm that Captain Collins is staying overnight in Kavak, and that you will take care of his lodging and meals?”
“And I’ll buy him a drink.”
“May I also confirm that you and your wife will return to Caracas, before noon on the next morning?”
There was no way he and Taylor were going back to Caracas, but he replied, “Correct.” He’d have to persuade Captain Collins to fly them across the border into Colombia. Money was a good persuader. So was a Glock.
“Have a good flight, Mr. Bowman, and thank you for choosing Apex. If you need a charter flight in the future, Apex would be happy to assist you.”
Not after he hijacked the plane and pilot to Colombia. “Thank you.”
“I hope you see that yellow-bellied Worley.”
He hoped not. “I’ll e-mail you a photo of them mating.”
“That won’t be necessary.” She added, “Bon voyage.”
“Buenas noches.” He hung up and said to Taylor, “Two forty-five A.M. airport arrival for a three-fifteen flight to Kavak, stopping at Ciudad Bolívar for fuel.” He added, “So hopefully we’ll have enough gas to get us from Kavak to Colombia.”
She nodded.
“Well,” said Brodie, “we have a few hours to kill.”
She suggested, “We should get some sleep.”
“Right.” Or they could do something else.
She stood and went over to the balcony doors, and he followed. She said, “I hope this storm passes so we can take off on time.”
“It seems to be moving out to sea.”
She watched the rain and lightning, then asked, “Are you going to call Dombroski?”
“We’ve done that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“This may be one of those times when you agree with me that he doesn’t need to know everything.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
Brodie had the feeling, based on instinct and experience, that Trent and the CIA had kept in touch with Maggie Taylor after she’d kicked Mr. Wonderful out of her apartment. He would have pushed her on that, but a good interrogator knows when to stop asking questions. Especially if the interrogator is thinking about getting laid.
A huge sheet of lightning lit up the sky and illuminated the distant hills of Petare in an incandescent glare. Seconds later an earth-shaking thunder rolled across the dark city and rattled the glass doors.
Taylor asked, “Did you ever see an arclight?”
Meaning a flight of B-52s, dropping two-thousand-pound bombs. “No.”
“I did. Once.” She stared off at the hills, silhouetted by the distant lightning. “It was like the world was coming to an end… The mountains and the night sky were lit up, and the earth shook, and the explosions were like eruptions from far-off volcanoes. It was apocalyptic. It was the most awesome… beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Brodie was sure that the people in the strike zone had a different perspective, but he said, “One day, when you realize you love the sound of outgoing artillery, the sight of air strikes, the smell of gunpowder… you are then changed forever.”
She nodded, then turned to him, and they looked at each other. She said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Flagstaff sooner.”
“Better late than never.”
“I don’t want you to jeopardize your career by not reporting this conversation.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Taylor looked away, like she had something more to say and was trying to figure out how to say it.
Maggie Taylor was not combat infantry like Brodie, but she’d gone through the same fire anyway, and she had the scars to prove it. But she had other scars too, apparently, the kind unseen. It must have been a shock to join an outfit supposedly built on optimism like Civil Affairs, where one day you’re helping plant crops and build schools, and the next you’re painting civilian targets for a Black Ops death squad.
You lose your innocence in war, but Maggie Taylor had also lost faith.
And just as Sergeant Scott Brodie had responded to the mind-fuck of the Iraq War by swapping his M4 rifle for a CID badge, Maggie Taylor was trying to balance the scales once again toward justice. If she sometimes came across as a little too obedient to the rules, it was maybe because she saw the darkness that was possible in their absence.
She looked back at him as a